Tag Archives: Poemaday

Second Joy

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The Day 17 Prompt for The Poetry Pub’s November Poem a Day Challenge  is a Form Friday prompt. The poetic form is “terza rima” — a form invented by Dante Alighieri which he employs in his Divine Comedy. This poem I’ve actually been working on for four years since attending a summer class at Regent College. The class and the eight late July days in Vancouver were some of the most refreshing days I’ve experienced. Indebted doesn’t capture my gratitude for the instructor and his example. I didn’t know any living poet-priest/pastors out there. His example gave me permission, and it has made all the difference. So, here’s to Second Joy, which happens to be the subject’s Yoruba first name.

You may listen to me read the poem via the player below.

Second Joy

In the spring of life I set out at dawn
On a journey seeking that thing to fill
My belly’s ache, some bread to feed on.

And I came to a man who served as a shill
For the swindlers of success who sold to me
All I could want just by taking a pill.

So I dosed my ache to the full degree
With all the world could hope to offer
But hunger still nagged and thirst pained in me.

And hunger grew, grew greater than before
Imaginings sought thrill, wandered in wild
Gorging, yet longing, thirsting wanting more.

By noon I squandered my life, defiled,
Lost and alone having left the straight way 
Where I waffled twixt two unreconciled.

When afternoon came to my life’s day
A Poet sounded me with meter and rhyme,
And was “mio maestro y autore!”

His words cleared the glass, spurred me up the climb
Beyond the heavy, damp, and cloudy air,
Beyond the film of the familiar’s grime.

Past pride’s rock, unto evening’s copse of care
The gladsome hill we climb up to hope’s height.
Where He speaks, “Peace!” to my fears.

With second joy, this poet set me right,
Colm’s servant, Ayodeji Malcolm Guite.

© Randall Edwards 2023

Solstice

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Day 9’s prompt for Poetry Pub’s November Poem a Day Challenge is “solstice.”

This sonnet is a tribute to all the Poetry Pub Poets who have been such an encouragement and blessing over many years. They have show me kindness and hospitality that has been life giving. And I am a grateful to the Lord for them. Write on, poets. Your words enchant and are being used in the work of Him Who Makes All Things New.

You may listen to me read the poem via the player below.

I trust you poets whom I have heard
To dis-spell darkness with your words
I’ll follow your lead to the darkest day
I’ll hear and believe all you’ve to say.
About the ills of the wicked and bad—
The grief of trauma and loss, the sad
which you beat into golden, lined-welds
Which binds together all the broken we’ve held.

And I hope to be the first to cheer
When gathered on blankets neath trees to hear
All the poems you’ve prayed, how their mending
Worked to bring high-summer — this never-ending
Solstice where in The Park, the Spirit’s breeze
Blows healing that falls as light on the leaves.

© Randall Edwards 2023

Wobble

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Today’s Day 8 Poetry Pub Poem a Day Challenge prompt is “Equinox.” In this poem I talk about my experience with a speed wobble while descending on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

These men steadied me early on ministry. Their companionship and camaraderie continues to bear fruit in my life, especially in gratitude.

You may listen to me read the poem via the player below. 

There is nothing like the equinox
Of bombing the Parkway, tucked tight, and locked—
Tucked in, rolling straight and true
In the line, on the beat, in the groove,
Those five miles downhill from Aho to Bamboo 
Going 48 (mph) in the straightaway 
Wind rushing past on
A glorious day!

By the time I reached the Bamboo ridge
Over Goshen Creek at George Hays bridge,
The equinox of rolling true
Was shot,
And I was in deep dew.

Somewhere before that sweeping turn
The thrilling rush of descent had burned
Off and turned into a little shimmy, 
The front wheel weaved, went
Side to side swimmy.

The swimmy got worse, my bike got got, 
All sigodlin fast, all weavey, flop bot
I didn’t know what in, but 
I knew I was caught.

And there alone, I learned a big learn
50 feet over, on that bridge in a turn,
How equinox can suddenly turn
A sporty, rolling shimmy 
Into a colly-wobbled, deadly gimmie,
Full on wacky, wheel-weavin,
Tank slappin, heavin, 
Speed wobble.

Do you know the sensation you get
When you think you’re in control and yet
You realize the ride your riding
Is really riding you?
You hold on tight for your dear life, 
You try and try with all your might
To fix what’s wobbled wrong?

Though you try, though you think you can,
You can’t stabilize with just two hands
To steady your world’s gyration.
Dampen the wobbled vibration
That threatens to
Shake you to pieces.

No pair of docs can bring
The balanced, rolling equinox.
A third is what you need:
To touch the top tube
With your knee,
Or the touch of another’s hand
To dampen confusion, steady you
With grace and love
And true.

© Randall Edwards 2023

Uzzah’s New Cart

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This is Day Two’s Poetry Pub prompt for the November Poem a Day Challenge. It is based on 2 Samuel 6:6 and 1 Samuel 6:7. You may listen to me read the poem via the player below.

We are sympathetic to Uzzah
Whose impromptu hand it seems 
Took hold of the ark of the Lord
When the oxen stumbled
And the ark careened
Towards the ditch on the road from Baale-judah
It was being carried, which too 
May have been impromptu,
But we read that the cart was “new.”
 
And this is where it all falls apart.
The new cart was a work of art:
A Philistine-imagined invention,
A way to be delivered from
The constant Intervention
Of The Presence 
Who would just not leave well-enough alone,
Who would not leave idols standing
Leave out of sight the boiling tumors of sin:
The ugly which hides below the surface of the skin.
Instead, God drug out into the open:
Goiters of greed, pride’s pustules broken.
And so, they sent The God home,
Pulled by oxen on a “new cart.”
 
And Uzzah’s laying hold of the Ark?
It was the impromptu, habituated act
Of years of repetitive practice—
Living like one could move the Lord here
Or have him show up there,
Living like God needs my help,
Needs my holding back,
Thinking that with the right tools 
I can in fact, manufacture grace,
Keep him who breaks out, in place,
And god-help-us,
From playing the fool.

(c) Randall Edwards 2023
Artwork: Giulio Quaglio the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
#PoPubPAD #NovPad #NovPad2023

Dream or Nightmare?

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The Writer’s Digest is hosting its annual Poem a Day (PAD) Chapbook Challenge. Day Three’s prompt is “a dream or nightmare poem.” I wonder if election day was the inspiration for this prompt? At any rate, I took it as such.

You may listen to me read the poem via the player below.

Upon Election Day it would seem
Hangs all our nightmares or our dreams
Of hope and health and help and life
Or else death, stabbed in the back with a knife.

We’ll go to sleep to the play of the news
While pundits scour polls give us their views,
Their reasons with the probable plauses
Why it broke this way — what were the causes.

Restless we’ll dream while the TV drones on:
Politicians boast or sing their sad song,
Give their speeches of humble concession,
Or swear they’ll protest the fixed election.

One day you’ll wake, after this dreadful night;
The Sun shall rise in glory, heavy and light,
Bring the New Day, the Fullness of Dreams
To dispel the nightmare’s evil, wicked schemes.

© Randall Edwards 2020.